Though Google makes regular changes to its algorithms, one thing that has remained consistent for inbound marketers trying to optimize their website for search is keyword research.
In this post, we’ll explore what keyword research is, why it’s critical for your SEO strategy, how to go about conducting your research, and choosing the right keywords for your website.
What is keyword research?
The process of keyword research involves finding and analyzing the terms that people enter into search engines. The data collected can be used for a variety of purposes, including search engine optimization and marketing. By conducting keyword research, you can discover which queries to target, how popular they are, and how difficult it would be to rank for them.
Why is keyword research important?
Researching keywords can help you determine which keywords are most effective to target, and give you valuable insights into the types of queries that your target audience is searching for on Google. The information you can gather from these search terms can help guide your content strategy, as well as your broader marketing strategy.
If you want your content to be seen by people who are searching for solutions online, you should target keywords that are relevant to what you are offering. This will ensure that your content appears in front of your target audience, resulting in more traffic to your site.
We should be creating content around what people want to discover, not what we want to tell them. Our audience is coming to us.
This all starts with keyword research.
Conducting keyword research has many benefits, the most popular reasons being:
Marketing Trend Insight
If you want to be successful in marketing, you need to do effective keyword research to figure out what topics and keywords your audience is looking for. This will help you create content that is relevant to what they are interested in.
Traffic Growth
The better your keywords fit your content, the higher you’ll rank in search engine results, and the more traffic you’ll attract to your website.
Customer Acquisition
If you have content that would be useful for other business professionals, you can provide them with this information and include a call to action that would take them further into the buyer journey, from the awareness stage to the point of purchase.
Before you can create content that will rank in search engines and attract visitors, you need to understand which keywords to target. You can do this by researching keywords for their popularity, search volume, and general intent. This will allow you to create content that tackles the questions that most people in your audience want answers to.
Keywords vs. Topics
There is a widespread belief that SEO has changed a great deal in the last 10 years and that keywords are much less important for ranking highly on search engines.
An SEO professional would look at a keyword and consider the intent behind it, rather than just the keyword itself. Whether or not a piece of content solves for that intent is more important than the keyword itself.
But that doesn’t mean keyword research is an outdated process. Let me explain:
Keyword research shows you what topics are popular among your audience and how many searches per month they are getting. You can use this information to determine what keywords to target in your content.
How to Research Keywords for Your SEO Strategy
The following is a process you can follow to help you come up with a list of terms you should be targeting for your keyword research strategy. By following this process, you will be able to come up with a list of terms that will help you get found for the search terms you actually care about.
Step 1: Make a list of important, relevant topics based on what you know about your business.
Think of 5-10 topics that are important to your business. These topics will be used to help come up with specific keywords later.
These topics are probably what you blog about most frequently if you are a regular blogger, or they may be the topics that come up the most in sales conversations. If you were a company like HubSpot, for example — selling marketing software (which happens to have some awesome SEO tools… but I digress), you might have general topic buckets like:
- “inbound marketing” (21K)
- “blogging” (19K)
- “email marketing” (30K)
- “lead generation” (17K)
- “SEO” (214K)
- “social media marketing” (71K)
- “marketing analytics” (6.2K)
- “marketing automation” (8.5K)
The numbers in parentheses show how often the keyword is searched for each month. This data can help you understand how important these topics are to your audience, and how many different sub-topics you might need to create content on to be successful with that keyword. To learn more about these sub-topics, keep reading.
Step 2: Fill in those topic buckets with keywords.
Now that you have a few topic buckets to focus on, it is time to identify some keywords that fall into those buckets. Your target customer is probably conducting searches for those specific terms, which makes them important to rank for in the search engine results pages.
For instance, if I took that last topic bucket for an inbound marketing software company — “marketing automation” — I’d brainstorm some keyword phrases that I think people would type in related to that topic. Those might include:
- marketing automation tools
- how to use marketing automation software
- what is marketing automation?
- how to tell if I need marketing automation software
- lead nurturing
- email marketing automation
- top automation tools
This step is about coming up with a list of keyword phrases that potential customers might use to search for content related to a particular topic bucket. The list doesn’t need to be final, we just want a list of phrases to help us later on in the process.
Google is encrypting more and more keywords every day, but you can also find out which keywords your website is already being found for. To do this, you’ll need website analytics software like Google Analytics or HubSpot’s Sources report, available in the Traffic Analytics tool. Look at your website’s traffic sources, and examine your organic search traffic to identify the keywords people are using to reach your site.
This text is about a tip for keyword research. If you want to do keyword research, a good tip is to talk to your colleagues in Sales or Service. They can tell you what terms your prospects and customers use, or what questions they have.
Step 3: Expand each topic with a list of phrases you think your customers use
Use these terms and phrases to develop a list of potential keywords and key phrases to use in your website content, product descriptions, category names, tags, and other fields. As you develop your list of potential keywords and key phrases, consider how well each term or phrase reflects the content and purpose of your website. Some terms and phrases may be too general to be of much use, while others may be so specific that they only appeal to a very small audience. What are the terms or phrases your target customer might use to locate information, products, or services within each of your general categories? This is a difficult question to answer without knowing more about the business and the target customer. Some potential terms or phrases that could be used to locate information, products, or services within each category include: information: learn, find, research, study products: buy, purchase, shop, browse services: avail, use, find, search
If you have data from website analytics software, like Google Analytics or HubSpot’s Sources report, look through your organic search traffic to find keywords that consumers use to arrive at your website.
This exercise is meant to help you brainstorm keywords that will make your research more targeted and fruitful.
For the example of the environmentally friendly website above, under the category “Healthy environment,” you might list:
- Compare air purifiers
- Best water filters
- Aroma diffuser
- Essential oil diffuser
- Nontoxic paint supplies
- Hypoallergenic pillows
- Natural ways to reduce allergies
- How to improve indoor air
- How to use sage
– Brainstorm a list of customer types – Brainstorm a list of customer touchpoints – Brainstorm a list of channels Make a list of customer types, customer touchpoints, and channels. You can ask your co-workers or employees for ideas. Those who interact with customers may have some great insights and ideas.
Step 4: Find related search terms
There are a few different ways you can add new keywords to your list. One way is to brainstorm with your team and come up with a list of potential keywords. Another way is to use a tool like Google AdWords Keyword Planner to find new keywords related to your business.
- Search a keyword phrase in Google and scroll to the bottom of the page, where you’ll see a list of related search phrases in bold.
- For a deeper dive, click on one of the related searches and check out the list Google suggests at the bottom of that second page.
- The website AnswerThePublic allows up to 3 free searches a day. It delivers a chart of phrases people are searching for related to your topic.
- You can also type your keyword phrase into Google’s Keyword Planner or one of the paid tools listed below and see what other relevant terms people use.
Step 5: Analyze the strength of your keywords
One way to complete the next stage is by using Keyword Planner or a paid keyword research or SEO tool, such as Ahrefs, Semrush, Wordtracker, or Ubersuggest.
When analyzing your keywords, you should look for the following things.
- What is the exact search term? Make sure your keyword phrase matches the precise search term people use.
- How high is the search volume? If no one uses a keyword phrase, it won’t do you much good to structure a strategy around it. Look for the highest search volume available.
- How steep is the competition? The paid tools differentiate between competition for paid ads versus for organic search. You want a higher search volume with lower organic search competition. That’s the sweet spot.
- Check for related terms you may have missed that have high search volume and low organic search competition.
Step 6: Determine how you rank in your industry
If your competition is taking up the first page of Google for most of the terms you’ve identified, you’ll want to find less competitive long-tail keywords.
Search for your most desired terms on a search engine results page. If the results are mostly from well-known brands with more influence than your company, try using different, more specific keywords.
The only time you wouldn’t want to follow this strategy is if your competition’s content is of poor quality. If you are confident that your content is better in terms of length, quality, and layout, then you may be able to achieve a higher ranking than them, even if they have a larger marketing budget.
Step 7: Verify search intent
When a consumer enters a search query into Google, it is because they are looking for an answer to a question.
What is the customer’s intent when they type in a keyword phrase? To understand this, type the keyword phrase into a search engine and see what pages already rank for that phrase. What do these pages offer?
If a customer is only looking for information, and you try to sell to them, they may click on your product, but then leave your page quickly. This will lower your ranking. However, if a customer is actually ready to buy a product, and you provide them with the page they need, they will be satisfied.
Add a column to your spreadsheet labeled “buyer intent” and make a note of the intention behind each keyword or phrase before using it in content creation.
Keyword research is the foundation of your SEO strategy
Although keywords are helpful in categorizing your content and making it easier for shoppers to find you, they are only a part of a successful SEO strategy.
In order for your blog posts and pages to rank high on search engines, you need to create content that is high quality and relevant to the keyword phrases you are targeting. Write better than your competition and make your content more valuable, comprehensive, and readable.
In addition to paying attention to the content of each article, you also want to pay attention to the layout and how the page is set up for SEO purposes. Make sure your page is easy to scan and mobile-friendly.
SEO is not just for search engines, but for humans as well. The first step is to keyword research. By providing content that your users enjoy and find valuable, they will spend more time on your website, which tells Google that you are doing a good job.
Organic SEO takes time. You might see quick results for some terms or phrases, but most businesses see a gradual increase in their SERPs. Be consistent, be patient, and enjoy your keyword research.
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